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Gossip Girl, Season 2, Episode 18: The Age Of Dissonance

Trust: The New Four Letter Word

Highlights:DownerDan is a tool for the most part; ChildTeacher needs to be fired pronto; BoringNate is so boring that he doesn’t know what not boring is

When we last saw the East Siders of the Upper Persuasion, Blair was being mean, DownerDan was being a tool, SluttySerena broke up with him, ChildTeacher was statutory raping DD, BoringNate was being boring with LongLostVanessa, SuicidalEric and KleptJenny were MIA, RockingRufus and JudgyLily were being everything parents should not be, and Chuck Bass was Chuck Bass.This week, the seniors are acting in The Age Of Innocence, during which BN and DD get to wear uber-gay outfits, allowing their true homosexuality to shine in public while pretending they are acting.They make a spiffy gay couple in Turn Of The Century garb.

Blair tells SS that SS is suited to play the pretty character while B herself can play the deeper character.SS has a crush on their director.B wonders if she’s sick of brooding artists.The chickadees get all loud with squeals because NelliYuki gets an early acceptance to Yale.B is horrified because Yale offers only one of those and she didn’t get it.

KJ volunteered to do costumes for the play and she doesn’t like it.She complains about it to DD who walks away without saying anything.Then CT walks in and DD looks at her forlornly.

LLV creeps behind the scenes for a new documentary and BN is boring.Oh. My. God.He dares to call Wharton’s The Age Of Innocence boring.There’s adultery, intrigue, conniving, backstabbing, and lying, but the book is boring.No, Nate.YOU’RE boring.LLV discusses the symbolism in the book and, because he has no clue as to what she’s talking about, he macks it with her.

Chuck is networking at a restaurant and spies Carter Baysin.The woman Carter is with the “trollop” from the mystery night Chuck can’t remember much about.She leaves.Then Carter leaves.I have no idea what’s going on.

Backstage, the Poor Humphrey siblings talk about CT because it’s all about DD.He doesn’t like how the other teachers treat CT.KJ wants DD to stay away from her.He wants to know if she’s okay.KJ agrees to go out and give CT a note from DD.CT gives the note back to KJ with a charm in it.Seriously? This woman is psycho.Find someone your own age!!!!!Or at least someone who can buy you a drink without using a fake ID.

B finds Head Mistress Quiggley (yes, I’m aware that’s not her name—mine name for her is better) to complain about NelliYuki getting into Yale early.HMQ was on her way to tell B that Yale has extended B’s acceptance to NelliYuki instead.Someone put in a call to Yale about B’s hazing of a faculty member and even though B made amends, Yale doesn’t care.B won’t be attending Yale.Still, the show must go on, so B takes the stage as Countess Olenska, allowing her to put all her sorrow into her character.

Far from school in the business world, Chuck Bass, who apparently no longer needs an education, finds the trollop sitting in his office.She asks for his help.

At schools, RR sits in on rehearsal next to KJ.He finds the passionate note and the key (not a charm—oops) that CT left for DD.

B goes backstage to accost NelliYuki who is currently in a fat suit.She calls NelliYuki jealous because B has a great life.NelliYuki says that people hate B, they aren’t jealous, and that she didn’t tell Yale about the CT hazing.Then they all get an email blast about B’s ex Lord who was schtupping his own mother, saying that B knew and was desperate.Someone’s obviously out to get B.

SS finds the director to try to get him to sleep with her.He could care less and walks away.Then LLV cockblocks and asks SS about her part in the play for the documentary.SS asks Julien the director if he would join her and LLV so they can interview him for the film.He, for some ungodly reason, agrees.

While Julien gets his coat, B arrives to yell at LLV for sending the CT hazing info to Yale and the Lord info to GossipGirl.LLV has no clue what B is talking about.B wants to know what SS is hanging with LLV because they hate her.SS says she doesn’t hate her.B advises SS to stay away from LLV because LLV destroys things and cannot be trusted.

The trollop girl is at Chuck’s house.She’d been hanging with Carter to get help because he’s rich. She says that she knows a lot of information that could destroy people and she wants to get away.He offers to get her a new identity.She thanks him and then they mack it.He asks how she feels about Brazil.If I know Chuck Bass, then I know he’s not talking about the country.

Now here’s a table I would never want to sit at.Julien the Director is yammering about the play and literature.LLV is lapping it up with giggles and “are you kidding”s.BN is staring on all pouty because he has no clue what’s going on.SS is trying to get attention by being pretty.BN wants to leave but SS needs LLV to stay so that SS understands what the conversation is about.BN leaves and then Julien decides to jet anyway. LLV calls Julien self-centered and suggests SS not be so into him.Julien comes back to the table, saying he paid.SS asks for more coaching and he agrees to help her later on.

Over in the Poor House, DD the ToolBox tells KJ he was looking for her after rehearsal.She says he was great in the play.He doesn’t care about that.He wants to know if CT responded.She says that CT wrote him a note.He wants it but, uh-oh!Dad has it!

Cut to RR walking in on CT setting up candles on her dining room table.He holds up the key to hand it back to her.For all the non-parental things that RockinRufus does that will surely wound his offspring emotionally and mentally for the rest of their lives, this is one thing that is, in a word, AWESOME.

Back at the Poor House, RR tells DD that the thing between DD and CT is over.DD thinks that it’s not.RR tells him that as much as he thinks he’s all grown up, he’s not.Does Rufus have a tan?DD explains that he’s 18 and he can do what he wants.Okay, so it’s not statutory rape after all.Still, it’s completely unethical.

SS runs lines with Julien on her couch.He brings up other Wharton novels to help her work on the character.SS has her phone hidden in her hair on her ear.She’s locked into LLV who’s feeding her ideas to say.BN walks up behind LLV, overhearing her praise for Julien.He walks away without LLV noticing he’s there.For someone so streetwise, she has no awareness of her surroundings.Julien tells SS she’s deep.Then SS gets a text blast that says she’s been accepted to Yale only because it’s good for a press release about it.

Carter Baysin meets Chuck and the trollop on the street to help her get her new identity.Chuck kisses her goodbye as if he’s her boyfriend and guarantees she’s okay.Then Baysin says he’ll take care of her while showing the Stamp of the Secret Society on his arm to Chuck.Carter was the wrong person to trust.

SS goes to B’s to yell at her about sending the info about Yale and the press release to Gossip Girl.B swears she would never do that.SS explains that only B and DD know about it and DD wouldn’t do it.SS storms out, hating that she trusted her best friend, and B tells ServantLady it all must be DD’s fault.

DD grabs CT inappropriately at school because he wants to talk to her.He wants him to stay away and he pulls her into the dressing room. Because that won’t be misconstrued at all.He can’t pretend that he doesn’t have feelings for her.He grabs her hand and kisses it.She scowls at him but then they go at it again.On a chair.In the costume closet.At school.INAPPROPRIATE!!!!And let me say this—if the roles were reversed, if she were a male teacher and he were a female student, no way would this be any kind of acceptable.

The play is going on.LLV is recording parts of it backstage.She stops taping when SS exits stage so she can ask about Julien.B, meanwhile, is giving DD the evil eye.

Chuck meets with a friend of his father to ask about a gentleman’s club.The guy says he doesn’t know Carter Baysin, but Chuck saw this guy leave when Carter did.Chuck says that when he goes to the authorities, he’ll give all the names of his father’s friends.He says that he cares about the trollop.Mr. Campbell, the dad’s friend, says he can’t say anything.He leaves.Then Chuck gets a text that has a hotel name and a time.

Julien gives the cast a pep talk between acts.He makes really bad metaphors about acting and being on a cliff.Then he informs them that Charles Isherwood, a renown theatre critic, is in the audience.The real Charles Isherwood is actually on the show.I don’t know why he would be coming to a high school rendition of a play in which none of the students are serious actors.

Backstage, LLV nags at BN for not coming to get her.Julien interupts their boring fight to tell BN that, well, basically that he’s dumb and doesn’t understand the depth of his character.BN walks away to work on his smoldering tempest of emotion.Julien tells LLV to set up a tripod so she can watch the show along with him.

On stage, B starts to break character to yell at DD under her breath during their scene together.She slams him against the carriage their sitting in for a mock makeout.When the curtain closes, she says that he’s the only one who knew it all so it has to be him.She storms away and DD peeks out from behind the curtain to see CT in the audience.

Backstage, KJ gives BN a scarf.He screws up his lines on stage when he sees LLV sitting next to Julien.Then he breaks character to say he hates the clothes (no he doesn’t), he hates the play (believable), and he hates “pretentious ass-hats who try to steal other people’s girlfriends” (he may hate pretentious ass-hats but he doesn’t care about girlfriends because DD is his one true love).Finally, though, he’s not boring.He threatens to punch the next ass-hat in his face.

B picks up where he left off, bemoaning how people try to destroy you anonymously.Then SS complains about how best friends can be untrustworthy.NellyYuki pipes up that she hates her costume.Then BN comes back onto stage to complain that his family lost all its money so he knows more about humiliation and bankruptcy than the pretentious director.KJ finally pulls the curtain shut.The audience offers a confused clap.

Julien yells at the high school idiots backstage.Charles Isherwood loved the juxtoposition of the radical desconstruction in the second act.Julien takes the credit for all of it.LLV gets it all on her camcorder and then goes to look for BN.SS doesn’t know why she had a crush on Julien.He tells her he’s gay.

LLV finds BN to ask what happened to him.He says he knows she’s into Julien because he’s older and deep and he overheard her at the gallery.She says that she was on the phone with SS.He says that the fact remains—they have nothing in common.She says that he doesn’t even try.He thinks that she should be with someone who likes tomatoes.She calls him insecure and lazy.

The trollop finds Chuck and says that all she had to do was sign a confidentiality agreement.All she needed was money.She doesn’t want to go anywhere with him and he should give his heart to someone who cares.Chuck is left standing alone.

DD pulls CT aside behind a carriage prop and acts as if it’s a sound-proof bubble.He can’t believe she sent all that info out to Yale to hurt B.He says she has no integrity.She says that B deserved it.DD says CT is worse because B’s a high schooler and CT is an adult.Umm, technically CT is an adult, but judging from her recent actions in wardrobe, she’s not an adult in a mental capacity. DD of all people should know that.

Immediately, DD tells B out in the open (yet no one overhears) that CT was the leak.Then he says, “We had sex in the costume closet.Do what you want with that.”He definitely hopes that tidbit gets out.He knows it will only up his worth.Back to being a tool in five seconds flat.

B stalks up to CT and asks if sex with a student is moral.CT is confused and can’t understand what she’s become.She apologizes to B.B says that her punishment is to live with it.It’s not easy; B says she knows.

SS texts LLV that Julien is gay.DD finds SS to tell her that he’s responsible for the blast about SS’s press release because he told CT who leaked it.SS goes to find B.

LLV apologizes to BN at his place.She brought snacks so they could cuddle on the couch and watch ESPN.He’s watching The Age of Innocence on his laptop.He calls it heart-breaking and they kiss.So boring.

DD arrives home as RR eats Haagen-Dazs from the carton.He rambles about how CT isn’t who he thought she was.He says that RR was right but RR has to give him space to make his own mistakes.RR tells him to make mistakes at Yale with girls his own age.

B plays with the olive in her martini when SS arrives to apologize for not believing B.B knows that B lies and betrayal is in her own nature.She doesn’t want a speech from SS telling her she’s a good person.Yale kicking her out is karma.She asks SS to leave.Wow, B broods as well as Chuck Bass.

KJ gives DD a letter she found by the door.It’s from CT.She’s returning to Iowa.She quotes Edith Wharton in it.